


Ten Years

by Helenish



Series: Here is a thing that isn't happening. [7]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, underage mumble mumble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-01
Updated: 2011-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:59:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helenish/pseuds/Helenish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know what they say," Mal says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Years

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Polski available: [Dziesięć lat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063399) by [Donnie_Engelvin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donnie_Engelvin/pseuds/Donnie_Engelvin)



Arthur assumes he’ll see Eames again soon enough--independents specializing in mindheist are relatively rare. Most people are still working out of off-books government ops or freelancing to supplement their lousy adjunct professor pay, and plenty of people are choosier about ethics than Arthur ever was. Arthur works corporate, mostly, political less often, but almost everything is owned by the same people, stealing each others’ bullshit secrets, pretending they’re somehow better than the other guys.

Eames drops out of sight, but Arthur was the one who taught him how, so he knows where to look. He keeps watch, those first months: Eames does a couple easy pick-ups, and then runs a tricky, flashy op for a food conglomerate, works with a few good crews but walks away, every time.

Arthur works with the same rotating roster of people again and again, especially once Dom and Mal get a little squeamish about the more dangerous jobs ("It’s just that I can’t stand to spent this much time in airports anymore," Mal tells him, her face crinkled up in disgust over some shitty airport coffee, but Arthur’s seen her fiddling with mortgage calculators when she’s supposed to be in the middle of a build, and Cobb’s started smiling and saying "Come on, Arthur, give them a break," when there’s a fucking baby two rows back that screams and farts for the whole goddamn flight. Arthur smiles at Mal and says, "okay, I get it," and he does.)

That’s the first year.

Trinny calls him up and says, "You ever heard of this Eames guy--what’s his deal?" Arthur and Cobb had never allowed Eames use his real name on the job, in case, Arthur told him, you change your mind and want to be an upstanding citizen.

"Never worked with him,” Arthur says. “Supposed to be pretty solid, though."

If Eames fucks her over, Trinny will message him, maybe, but not otherwise. She doesn’t owe him. He doesn’t hear from her for another year, and then only because she wants him to come along on some medical malpractice job and watch her back.

That’s the second year.

By the third year he realizes--he won’t walk into a job and see Eames, his feet slung up on a desk, throwing him a sideways grin. It’s not coincidence or bad luck that has him in Barcelona, Eames in Shanghai, him in Missoula, Eames in Athens. Eames is avoiding him; Eames doesn’t want to work with him.

He spends a weekend being angry--it was one lousy punch and kid had taken him apart. The cashier at the hardware store still says "Hey, it’s Mike Tyson!" and asks if he’s been in any prize fights lately whenever he’s in there buying new tubing.

At his lowest, he gives up and asks Mal,

"Do you ever hear from him?"

"No,” she says, gently. "No, I’m so sorry." They’re priming the walls in the living room of Dom and Mal’s new house. Mal’s face is streaked with paint and she’s hugely, heavily pregnant.

"Okay," Arthur says.

"You know what they say," Mal says. "If you truly love something, set it free--"

"Punch it in the face and it’ll realize you’re an asshole and get on with its life," Arthur says.

"You haven’t allowed yourself to grieve," Mal says, tipping her paintbrush sternly towards him.

"I’m fine," Arthur says.

That’s the fourth year.

Dom, obviously coached by Mal, tries hard not to mention Eames, but forgets sometimes, calls Arthur up about some paper he’s working on and says, "hey, do you remember that job, we went in with, um, Eames as--I mean."

"You can talk about it. about him," Arthur finally says.

"Well, I’m sorry," Dom says huffily. "Mal says you’re really fucked up about it. You know, last spring we were going to see if we could get deeper than three levels, figure out what was down there, but Mal wouldn’t do it because she said you were too fragile and I had to take you out and get you drunk. I can’t even look at tequila anymore, by the way, so thanks for that."

"That’s not even--" Arthur says, and then stops. "Sorry I interfered with your important research schedule," he says sarcastically.

"It’s fine," Cobb says. "Mal was up for tenure and then we were trying to close on the house, the timing was bad anyhow. And then Carter, and Lensky."

"Yeah," Arthur says tightly. There’s nothing else to say, really. Carter and Lensky dreamed deep, everyone knew that. Carter shot himself in the head and, a few weeks later, Lensky slit his wrists. They’d never met, never worked together.

That’s the fifth year.

Arthur works, very steadily. He dates a little, gets serious twice, has one awful breakup and one surprisingly amicable one. He works in Mal’s lab for a summer when some of her grant-funding falls through. He learns how to change a diaper and tags along on a legal job or two with Dom. Mal gets knocked up again, and then one more time after that.

Arthur thinks of Eames--when he sees teenagers slouching along the sidewalk, their feet still too big for their bodies, when someone on a job slaps the table and says, "you will never even believe what this forger I worked with did--" but it stops being a stinging wound and becomes something more like a tender, secret little bruise, the kind you might find after a New Years Eve party or a long picnic on the beach, a reminder, but not a painful one.

Mostly, Arthur remembers how Eames looked, that first time he woke up, reaching for Arthur with his arm still hooked to the IV, his face stunned, elated.

That’s the next five years.


End file.
